Addon Spotlight: ReforgeSaver lends a hand

Few times in my World of Warcraft existence am I truly stunned when an addon does something so simple and effective that a happy laugh emits from my dropped jaw. Truly, hyperbole is necessary when we talk about ReforgeSaver, a wonderful utility from addon creator Jordans. Pressing one button and making many things happen, almost like magic, is a good thing in my book.
Before we talk about ReforgeSaver, I wanted to share a quick personal addon anecdote (addonecdote?) with you fine people. You seem like the kind of bunch who enjoys hearing addon stories (considering you're reading this column, which focuses primarily on addons, with the occasional side topic on my cats or making fun of worgen). Sadly, the latter pasttime is somewhat out of style, considering I now have a worgen character, although he is a bank alt in a top hat.
No, my addon anecdote comes from raiding earlier this week. As a tank, I get to do some pretty fun jobs in Cataclysm raiding (as opposed to standing next to another tank on Lana'thel, which could be considered a type of fun), and heroic Magmaw construct tanking is such a job most would describe as "funsies." Well, there is a whole lot of Magmaw on screen if you're pointed in certain directions, and it is a bit easy to lose control of your mouse pointer for clicking on things that need to be tanked. This, however, has never been an issue for me, since I am an avid _Cursor user and advocate; a blue line streaks behind my pointer for easy tracking.
For some reason, after my server transfer last week, and without notice by me, the cursor color had changed to red. Maybe I loaded a profile incorrectly. Maybe I made the change and do not remember doing so. Who knows? The point is is that when push came to shove on heroic Magmaw, for my first attempt, there was a whole lot of red cursor on a whole mess of red Magmaw, and I couldn't help but laugh.

Reforging is kind of a pain in the butt. I think the reforge system in WoW is one of the best new additions to the game that has ever been added. Stats are, in general, a pain, but managing those stats and knowing what benefits your character the most is a point of pride and an applicable marker for the level of skill that a player possesses.
The task of reforging is a bit tedious, as each item is placed into the reforger's window and stats are adjusted. The first time you do this act, you're excited and nervous, watching the stats change to just the right amount of rating to make it all click. The second through billionth time, however, things take a turn for the boring.
When I say how blown away I was at the simplicity and ease of ReforgeSaver, you'll soon understand why. ReforgeSaver adds a profile system to the top of the reforging window that allows you to equip and reforge gear, save that setup as a profile, and then automatically reforge the gear you are wearing back to that setup with one button press.
For you power gamers or power PvPers out there, this is an invaluable tool that will save you so much time. Have two different stats you want to bump up for PvP with the same gear set? Are you working on heroic content and have a setup for just that, while you still want to be able to do your dailies with a different set of stat priorities? Just save any of your reforge sets and press the reforge button -- you confirm the cost, and the addon goes to work.
The automatic nature of this utility is what sets it apart from other reforge addons. While not as feature-rich, the simplicity is where I fell in love. It's lightweight, easily incorporates into the already existing reforge UI, and does its job simply and without fuss. Those are qualities you can't say no to.
Download ReforgeSaver at [Curse] or [WoWInterface].

While we're on the subject of really neat utilities from Jordans, I wanted to quickly highlight one of his other addons that I found, as usual, by checking out the author of the addon I had planned on using for the feature. This addon is called SafeQueue and stops "that guy" from ruining your awesome night of rated battlegrounds and arenas.
SafeQueue blocks out the "leave queue" button and disables its use. In addition, when you're in the queue for a rated match or arena, the minimap functionality is changed so that a right-click leaves the queue instead of selecting it from the drop-down box. Sometimes, although rarely, you'll get a queue pop while in the drop-down box and then hate yourself when you click to leave. It's happened to me, and I still hate myself.
So, be safe tonight when you pal around with 9 other goofballs and do stupid crap like go, "Maybe this time we'll all go to the lighthouse, because hahaha we're hilarious -- oh wait, how did we lose?" You know who you are.
Download SafeQueue at [Curse].
Quick mailbag question, then I'm out of here. I have to do so much laundry you wouldn't believe it.

I'm kind of a running fool when it comes to UIs myself, but I read your column regularly. What UI is it that you use consistently? Just curious. I've used Real UI and LUI pretty solidly with Carbonite but I was curious what your preferences were.Thanks for the email, A. Personally, I use a collection of addons and UI features that I've configured myself and built my own simple UI from the ground up. You can check it out in the Reader UI article I did on my own UI at the beginning of the year. It still looks fairly similar to that one. There is nothing wrong with a prepackaged UI, however.
-A
As for prepackaged UIs, I use ElvsUI as a backup for when my UI decides to flatline, which it did in fact do.
Filed under: Add-Ons, AddOn Spotlight






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kenmoe Apr 7th 2011 5:54PM
Is there an addon that tracks weekly repeatable quest completion (ex. Victory in Tol Barad or the Wintergrasp quests)?
Joseph Smith Apr 7th 2011 5:56PM
What are some good resources for someone looking to get started with coding UIs? Is LUA a free programming language? If so where does one get it? Where is a good place to find any tutorials on how to use it with WOW?
Joseph Smith Apr 7th 2011 5:58PM
Wtb edit button. That should have said coding UIs and other addons.
Blaise Apr 7th 2011 6:38PM
Lua is free to use and requires nothing more than a text editor like notepad to get started. The easiest way to get started is to look at some simple addons that others have made. The are all plan text files and you can poke around in them all you want. http://www.wowpedia.org/Lua has links to more information on the language and advanced editors that can make working with it a little easier.
Darasen Apr 7th 2011 6:43PM
Lua is a scripting language thus there is no "buying" it. You can program Lua files with Emacs or notepad or what ever. The wow wiki has a list of editors better for it though. http://www.wowwiki.com/Lua_editors
WowWiki also has an enetire section of Lua resources. http://www.wowwiki.com/UI_FAQ/AddOn_Author_Resources
If you prefer hard copies there is a book called Beggining LUA with world of Warcraft Add-Ons. The publish bate is pre-cataclysm so many of the APIs have changed but the the programming instruction is still accurate. http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Lua-World-Warcraft-Add-ons/dp/1430223715/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302215752&sr=8-1-spell
Cephas Apr 7th 2011 7:00PM
Lua is a free and open-source language. The links here are a good place to start for info about Lua: http://www.wowpedia.org/Lua Aside from just understanding Lua by itself, you should also familiarize yourself with the WoW API. This is a great resource for that: http://wowprogramming.com/docs
Also, you might find it helpful to know that all addons run off of .lua files inside your addons directory. Just pull open any of your addons and you'll find tons of example code. If an addon is really simple it shouldn't be too hard to figure out what the code does especially if it's well commented (good luck with that, though).
Saix Apr 7th 2011 6:21PM
Glad to see ReforgeSaver get some broadcasting. It is definitely one of my favorite addons for this expansion, makes those port-and-summon reforge sessions take less than ten seconds!
Elmo Apr 7th 2011 6:25PM
I was kinda hoping this addon would allow me to play around with my reforges to look for a nice setup a bit without actually paying for it.
trying to get as close as possible to the hit and expertise cap while maximizing the mastery gain (a cookie for whoever knows what I play)
I'd like such a system ingame.
Eregos ftw! Apr 7th 2011 7:07PM
I'd guess rogue.
Krizzle Apr 7th 2011 7:22PM
Enhance shaman?
charlesbox Apr 7th 2011 7:26PM
Reforgenator does what you are describing, it keeps track of your hit/expertise caps and recommends items to reforge based on your spec.
Eregos ftw! Apr 7th 2011 7:06PM
Awesome, just got this cause I switch between kitty and bear alot! Now, is there one that will save your talent spec too?
Blaise Apr 7th 2011 7:21PM
You might want to check out talented (http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/talented.aspx). I haven't used it since 4.0, but it used to work well for saving and swapping different specs.
Talia Apr 7th 2011 7:44PM
Yes: Talented. You can save templates, then it only takes a couple of clicks to unlearn at the trainer, load the saved template, and click "Apply".
Mike Apr 8th 2011 9:02AM
Awesome suggestion on the reforging. Is there something similar for glyphs? Constantly switching between my boss glyphs, my trash glyphs, my magic fight glyps and my pvp glyphs makes me go bonkers.
Kelly Apr 8th 2011 9:52AM
I would like to chime in here: I tried ReforgeSaver (after using the java reforge helper app), and the results were.... ABYSMAL!
I'm a rogue, so I need Hit until SPELL HIT CAPPED, after that Mastery, then Haste.
What did the java app give me - 19% spell hit (2% OVER cap), a slight increase in mastery, but a massive hit to haste!
Overall, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone but "newbies" to the reforging process. You'd be better to use shadowcraft (http://shadowcraft.mmo-mumble.com/), then manually reforging everything using their suggestions.
With SC, I got to 16.99% spell hit (I'll take a .01% chance to miss), increase in mastery over reforgesaver and an increase in haste. After doing this, I had to re-gem (found a few that could be improved upon), then run the reforging tool again just to make certain I was at tip-top reforging.
bmecher2000 Apr 8th 2011 11:04AM
Looks like the add on thought you were an assasin rogue for some reason?
Kelly Apr 8th 2011 11:26AM
@BMecher2000, I AM an assassin rogue. That doesn't mean I want 19% hit, especially at the cost of precious haste....
Dennis Apr 8th 2011 11:38AM
The Advance Trade Skill Window addon has developed the habit of crashing the game when its opened to alchemy. Trying to find a new one with curses search is a joke, there are more chat addons under the profession listing than profession addons. Is there another addon that's equal to it, that would also work on the curse client?